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Friday, 18 February 2011

Outdoor Gym Installation Complete

You may remember my earlier post regarding the outdoor gym that is being installed in my local park. It is now complete and open to the public..

There are six pieces of equipment.

First of all there is a machine that works the obliques, hips etc.. You can just swing from side-to-side but I assume that using the machine with a more controlled motion works better.

In this next photo you can see my wife using one of the cardio machines, I'm not entirely sure of the name, but she liked it. Directly behind her is another cardio machine, and to the left are some bars for performing tricep dips or leg raises.

On this next piece of equipment you grab the handles and turn, my wife says she felt it most in the triceps, I think it probably works the shoulders and the rest of the arms too.

Lastly there is a chest press machine that uses your own body weight to create resistance for your exercise. It didn't feel like it was using my full body weight, so perhaps it cleverly offsets the weight somehow.

Overall, I think it's a nice edition to the park. I'm sure it'll keep the new-year-resolutionists and the (unfit) masses occupied for a few weeks.

However, the one thing that is missing is a pull-up bar. You can pretty much work every muscle in the body by just using your own body-weight, but for the back and biceps really need a pull-up bar. I think that's an oversight by whoever makes these decisions, they really should have taken some time to find out more about exercising before going ahead with it. Looks like I'll have to carry on using the 'monkey bars' in the kids' playground for now.